Policy and Infrastructure: Building the Digital Foundation in Africa

“The future of African digital trade is not just about moving data across borders—it’s about moving ideas, creativity, and economic power to where they can generate the most value for Africa’s people.”

• Writes  Lanem Law Kuma, contributing writer

Africa is at a pivotal point in its digital development, where policy changes and infrastructure improvements are unlocking new economic possibilities. Central to this shift is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which creates a unified market of 1.3 billion people with a combined GDP of $4.3 trillion. This bloc is more than just a trade agreement; it serves as Africa’s strategic platform for digital industrialization, regional connectivity, and inclusive growth. As digital trade is set to transform how Africans produce, share, and consume goods and services, the continent is laying the groundwork for a fully digital economy. From Nigeria’s major policy reforms to innovative infrastructure projects that improve rural connectivity and measures to support its growing creative industries, Africa is crafting a new approach to digital transformation—one that fosters innovation, inclusion, and sustainable growth.

AfCFTA and the Digital Trade Revolution

The African Continental Free Trade Area marks a significant shift in Africa’s economic strategy, with digital trade protocols playing a vital role in facilitating cross-border trade. The timing is crucial—although Africa’s share of global services exports is under 10%, this figure hides the vast potential that proper regulations and infrastructure can unlock. The AfCFTA’s Digital Trade Protocol sets unified rules and shared principles that promote digital trade, fostering sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth across the continent.

Nigeria’s Leadership in Digital Trade

Nigeria has become a key player in developing Africa’s digital trade sector, being appointed as the African Union’s co-leader of the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol in February 2025. This role highlights Nigeria’s strong digital economy and its strategic focus on continental integration. As Honorable Minister Dr. Jumoke Oduwole stated, “We are currently shaping the rules for e-commerce, data flow, and digital services across Africa.” Under her leadership, Nigeria hosted the inaugural digital trade market access roundtable, uniting regulators from Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa to advise Nigerian digital companies on entering and expanding in markets.

The economic need is evident—only 5% of Africa’s digitally-delivered services are currently traded within the continent, leaving significant potential for growth in intra-African digital trade and overall digital transformation. The AfCFTA seeks to change this situation by gradually liberalizing services, focusing on five key sectors (business services, communication services, financial services, tourism services, and transport services) in phase I, all of which are greatly impacted by the digital revolution.

Table: AfCFTA Digital Trade Potential

Policy Reforms: Nigeria’s Strategic Implementation

Nigeria’s approach to implementing its AfCFTA commitments demonstrates how strategic policy alignment can accelerate digital transformation. The country has moved beyond rhetorical support to concrete actions, establishing an AfCFTA Central Coordination Committee in early 2025 comprising relevant ministries, departments, agencies, and key private sector organizations to drive the process . This institutional architecture ensures that digital trade priorities are mainstreamed across government and that private sector needs inform policy development.

Concrete Implementation Steps

Nigeria’s implementation framework encompasses several practical components designed to translate protocol commitments into market opportunities:

• Gazetted Tariff Conferences: Nigeria has officially gazetted its schedule of tariff concessions for trade in goods, ensuring that made-in-Nigeria goods benefit from preferential rates and eventually duty-free tariffs .
• Digital Economy Legislation: A digital economy and e-governance bill is currently before the National Assembly, demonstrating Nigeria’s commitment to regulatory alignment and harmonization of standards with regional commitments .
• Market Intelligence Systems: The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has undertaken an extensive mapping exercise of digital services firms in Nigeria and built the first directory of digital services firms, disaggregated by sector .
• Target Market Strategy: Based on this mapping, Nigeria has identified five priority expansion markets for Nigerian firms: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa .

Minister Oduwole has articulated a vision of regulatory passporting, where “regulatory approvals in one jurisdiction can facilitate or expedite approvals in others, reducing barriers for firms operating across multiple markets” . This approach acknowledges that while physical infrastructure connects networks, regulatory harmonization connects markets—both are essential for Africa’s digital integration.

Public-Private Coordination

Nigeria has embraced a collaborative governance approach, recognizing that effective policy implementation requires ongoing dialogue between regulators and market participants. The maiden digital trade market access roundtable included clinic sessions where businesses could interact directly with regulators from priority markets . This practical engagement allows for specific guidance on documentation, preliminary approval processes, and compliance requirements.

The government has also established a clear compliance compact with businesses—”Compliance at home is a prerequisite for support abroad,” Minister Oduwole stated, adding that “Government cannot vouch for your credibility in foreign markets without confidence that you have fully satisfied domestic regulatory requirements” . This principle creates mutual accountability, where businesses invest in regulatory compliance and government invests in market access facilitation.

Bridging the Connectivity Gap: Infrastructure as Foundation

While policy frameworks establish the enabling environment, physical infrastructure remains the fundamental base of Africa’s digital transformation. The continent faces substantial infrastructure challenges, with BCG estimating that Africa has approximately 130 transnational infrastructure projects across energy, transport, digital, and water sectors, but only 6% are currently under construction. This gap in execution signifies not just missing infrastructure but also significant economic opportunity costs—estimated at $500 billion in GDP, 74 million jobs, and one million lives annually.

The Infrastructure Financing Challenge

The financing gap for African infrastructure is significant and continues to grow, with the African Development Bank estimating annual needs at $130-170 billion and a funding shortfall of $68-108 billion. This gap results from multiple factors.

• Perceived Investment Risks: Concerns about operational and commercial feasibility of projects post-final investment decision .
• Sovereign Debt Constraints: Limitations on borrowing by African governments whose sovereign debt levels are regarded as unsustainable .
• Foreign Investment Stagnation: Stagnant foreign investment and cuts in Official Development Assistance budgets .
• Risk Mitigation Gaps: Underutilization of risk-mitigation instruments that could reassure private investors .

According to Standard Chartered Bank, overcoming these challenges requires innovative financing models that blend public and private capital, including partial risk and credit guarantees, escrow structures, blended finance stacks, and viability gap funding. When structured appropriately, these tools can make projects bankable without distorting fundamentals.

Shared Infrastructure: A Case Study from Uganda

A powerful example of infrastructure innovation comes from Uganda, where a collaborative project demonstrated how infrastructure sharing can dramatically reduce costs and accelerate connectivity. The “Electricity and Fibre to the Village” (E-/FTTV) initiative combined the rollout of electricity distribution lines and fiber optic cable in rural areas, creating a virtuous circle enabled by aerial cabling .

The project, piloted in the remote village of Buheesi in Western Uganda, utilized existing power lines to deploy fiber optic cables to key community institutions including a secondary school, health center, and local government offices . By leveraging the same poles for both electricity and connectivity, the approach achieved significant cost savings—up to a 40% reduction in deployment costs for civil works and rights-of-way.

Table: Uganda Infrastructure Sharing Project Impact

The Ugandan example shows that aerial fiber-optic installation is a practical alternative to traditional underground methods, especially in remote or mountainous areas where underground installation is often too costly. Corning’s involvement offered specialized aerial cable solutions, including All-Dielectric Self-Supporting (ADSS) cables that don’t require a separate messenger wire between poles. This technical innovation, along with collaborative governance involving multiple stakeholders (GIZ, Rural Electrification Agency, Ugandan ministries, and technology providers), created a replicable model for other African countries facing similar connectivity issues in rural regions.

Protecting the Creative Economy in the Digital Age

Africa’s creative industries are among the most promising sectors for job creation and economic growth in the digital age. Valued at nearly $31 billion today, the creative economy could generate between $50 billion and $200 billion annually by 2030, potentially creating up to 20 million jobs with the right investments, policies, and training. However, unlocking this potential depends on targeted actions to tackle systemic challenges.

The Digital Marketplace Challenge

The creative sector encounters significant barriers to digital transition. According to research cited during an Ananse Africa webinar, “more than 70% of these creatives are not able to export,” with most selling mainly to domestic markets and neighbors. The digital skills gap is especially severe—”75% of these individuals either have a beginner or no e-commerce understanding, and only 15% of them are on e-commerce platforms.”

Fragmented support systems and the absence of coherent national strategies compound this challenge. “Of the 55 countries we have in Africa, only 12 of them have a creative strategy in place,” meaning most creatives operate without government support or inclusion in national strategies . The situation disproportionately affects women, who comprise 73% of creative workers but face additional barriers—”among women, only 39% are able to access the internet compared to 50% of men” 

Strategic Interventions for Creative Growth

Addressing these challenges requires a multi-faceted approach that connects skills development to market access:

• Holistic Training Models: As Sam Mensah, founder of Ananse Africa, discovered, simply providing market access is insufficient. When creatives received orders but struggled with product quality, digital marketing, logistics, and cash flow management, Ananse developed a more comprehensive approach including skills development, entrepreneurship support, and access to equipment and mentorship .
• Formalization Pathways: Dr. Isa E. Omagu of Nigeria’s Bank of Industry emphasized the need to “transform informal, self-taught creativity into formal, scalable, export-ready enterprises” through innovation, training, and policy alignment .
• Intermediary Support Structures: Rita Ngenzi, founder of the Africa Creative Alliance, advocates for focusing on intermediaries such as hubs and incubators that “serve as shared production and innovation platforms” .
• Inclusive Skill Transfer: Bayo Omoboriowo of Tikera Africa emphasizes knowledge transfer between generations, connecting young innovators with rural artisans who “already have a skill in their hand” . This approach “domesticates skill development” and preserves cultural heritage while enabling digital access.

The AfCFTA’s complementary frameworks—including the draft competition protocol with provisions on abuse of dominant positions by digital platforms designated as gatekeepers, and the intellectual property protocol explicitly aimed at supporting intra-African trade—create protective mechanisms for creative industries as they digitalize and expand cross-border .

The Path Forward

Africa’s digital foundation is being built through a combination of policy innovation, infrastructure investment, and sectoral protection—with the AfCFTA providing the overarching framework for integration. The synergistic benefits are clear: for every $1 billion invested in African infrastructure, up to $6 billion in GDP value can be unlocked through increased productivity, job creation, improved logistics, and expanded access to essential services .

The critical success factors for Africa’s digital transformation are increasingly evident:

1. Policy Implementation Focus: As Nigeria demonstrates, establishing committees, conducting reviews, and aligning legislation with AfCFTA commitments creates the enabling environment for digital trade to flourish.
2. Infrastructure Innovation: The Uganda case shows that shared infrastructure models can dramatically reduce costs and expand connectivity to underserved communities, building the business case for rural deployment.
3. Creative Economy Protection: Addressing the specific constraints facing creatives—especially digital skills, market access, and formalization—can unlock one of Africa’s most promising employment sectors.
4. Cross-Border Collaboration: Regulatory harmonization and passporting of licenses will reduce barriers to scaling digital businesses across African markets.

As Africa accelerates into a digital economic renaissance, the partnership between public institutions, private enterprises, development finance organizations, and creative entrepreneurs will determine the pace and inclusivity of growth. The digital foundation is being poured—upon it, Africa can build a prosperous, connected, and creatively vibrant future.